I have been writing in this blog for almost 9 years and I have written many times about nursery or nursery school, both to talk about health (children who go tend to get sicker), as well as the adaptation period, and the doubt that many have Fathers and mothers when educating their children, when they have the ability to decide: whether or not to take it.
In all these years I have referred to them as "nurseries" and as "nursery school" interchangeably, but the current tendency is to eliminate the term nursery, and they usually let me know on my Facebook page when I share a post in which I say "nursery", just as a few days ago Toni Cantó, a deputy of Citizens, was reproached, to say "nursery" and not "nursery school".
Irene Montero, spokesperson for Podemos, replied in this way to an intervention of Cantó, after using the term "nursery":
I believe that Toni Cantó must be reminded that nursery is not said, nursery schools are said because in these spaces children are not kept, but rather with much work they are educated and coeduca.
Do you say nursery or nursery school?
When I am currently talking about these centers, I call them "nursery school" because it is the most accepted term today. But as I say, when I share some old posts, in which I said "nursery", I don't modify them. I do not do it, first out of reluctance: the times I will have said daycare; and second, because I I don't see what problem there is with the term.
Montero says, as many mothers and fathers and many educators who work in nursery schools say, that there children are not kept as those who put them in a drawer. To this I can only answer with a "God, I hope so". Because if I am going to take my son to one and it will turn out that they let him in and disregard him, of course the name is not important, that center should not even exist.
In other words, whenever I have said nursery school I have been clear that they are centers in which children are cared for, cared for, and in which many things are taught and accompanied in their development. If you asked me what a nursery school is, I would define it in the same way. I don't know anyone who says "I wanted to take him to a nursery school, but he couldn't be and now he goes to a nursery school", nor does anyone say "Luckily, the old nursery school is now a nursery school", basically because in Spain the The concept is the same and the term we use will not make us see the centers better or worse.
And I say more. I still don't see what a problem there is with saying nursery, when the dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy does not define them so badly:
Childcare: 1. f. Place where young children are cared for and cared for.
Save: 1. tr. Take care of something or someone, watch and defend it. Save a field, a flock. Save a child.
To be careful is to care. Caring is what parents do. To attend is to be aware of their needs and demands, and meet them. The children they need to eat, play, sleep, be clean, affection and an education (so roughly). They would be your basic needs and demands. Well, that's what parents do and that is what a nursery or nursery staff should do, as defined.
But is that nursery school is something else
And then, when I say this, there is always someone who tells me that I am wrong; that a nursery school is more than that, because it enhances the development of children, teaches them through play, there are content prepared with objectives and a methodology, etc., to the point that, most children could be better, or learn more, going to nursery school than being at home with their parents for at least 3 years.
And this is when the seven evils enter me, I'm sorry. And not because I have to justify the fact that in my house none of the three children went to one; but because I can't understand that an educator with several dependent children can do the job better than an educator with one or two children, which is also the mother or father. The accounts do not come out.
"Already, but the educator has knowledge and the mother does not," some will tell me. And again I will say "God, I hope so"Because if you have to take care of several young children at the same time and you don't have the right knowledge, we are going wrong
And then we will have to try to know what a small child of months or a few years needs, and we will have no choice but to confirm what I just said: eat, play, sleep, be clean, affection and an education.
And in the case at hand, the educational: play, affection and an education. And learning, that education of which I speak, could almost be included in the term play, because children learn like this, playing (If they do not learn by playing, the nursery or nursery school will not be adequate). Then we could abbreviate and conclude that what a young child needs, at the educational level, is play and receive affection.
That is why the term "nursery" does not seem so bad to me (because they take care of them and play there), and that is why the term "nursery school" grinds me. Because it tries to convince parents that the best thing for children is to receive an education in a nursery school, when the ideal is that a child is with his parents, the first years, receiving affection, affection, love and company, feeling safe and dear to them, and playing with stimulating and fun things.
But this hurts a lot ...
And that is the problem. It hurts that you have your child in a nursery school and someone tells you that he would be better at home, because you have no other choice. "If I could choose ...", parents say. But can not. They can't because as a society we have involved a paternity model that continuously delegates it to third parties: the nursery school, the grandparents, the school, the extracurriculars, the institute and so on until the university arrives.
And instead of going out to the streets to shout at the four winds that this way you cannot educate a child well, because we see them very little, and when we see them we are exhausted because there is no conciliation, we assume that the world is like that, that no There is nothing to do, and our children actually go to kindergarten because it is positive for them and they learn more than at home. Of course, in many cases, if the parents are exhausted and are not for their children, it is clear that they will learn more there.
But if motherhood and fatherhood were protected, if it were given the value it has in those early years and the parents had much more facilities, the difference would be so abysmal, that few would consider taking the children to a nursery school in the first years.
And what would happen to them?
Any. No one would be left without work. They would continue to exist, as they exist in the Nordic countries, where children go until 6 or 7 years old because they know that the best thing a child can do in the first years is to play, and not what we want, which is that from the age of 2, but before, they are "schooled", learning to have an impressive curriculum as soon as possible for a two, end up selling hamburgers, or emigrating to another country, because in ours there is no work.
Photos | iStock
In Babies and more | And if we don't take you to the nursery school ?, The fantastic Fuji Kindergarten nursery school: you will want to be a child again and live in Tokyo, Alternative to the nursery school and its conventionalism: mothers by day and personalized attention
